When my mom found out that I was failing English, she nearly had a heart attack. I guess for her, being a bestselling author and all, it’s hard to imagine. And apparently for my teacher too. He thinks just because my mom is talented with a pen and some paper that I should be too. He tries to encourage me to write with this “it’s in your blood” crap, but I’m not buying it. The truth is I hate to write. Math is more my thing. In fact, if my mom wasn’t busy hyperventilating, she would’ve realized that my grade in that class was over 100 percent. Maybe then when she stopped she wouldn’t have run to the phone, called the school, and found me this snotty tutor named Erin. Who was then scheduled to come over on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s to help me learn sentence structure and the teachings of old English literature. Gag me. I thought it wouldn’t have been that bad. But after the fourth time of hearing Erin talk about the significance of adjectives, and after my ears started to bleed, I decided that nothing was worth that much torture. I had to do something about this to save my brain from being completely fried.
The following Tuesday when Erin was supposed to arrive, she called in, saying she couldn’t make it because she “tripped”, fell down the stairs, and broke her leg…oops. My mom was back on the phone trying to find a replacement tutor because the C Erin got me to, just wasn’t enough. Luckily for me, the school couldn’t find anyone available. So that meant that I could spend the rest of my Tuesday’s and Thursday’s sitting in front of the TV watching old reruns and eating my favorite brand of cheese curls. Wrong. My mom had a backup plan, and it was worse and Erin. Now, I had to sit at the kitchen table every night after school and listen to my own mother talk about pronouns and adverbs. Every night my head hurt so bad it was like I just got done doing brain pushups. No matter how much my mom went over the forms of writing, I still couldn’t manage to get my grade up to an A.
It was three AM on a Wednesday and I was still sitting at the desk in my room covered in text books my mom made me borrow from the library. I felt like an idiot stumbling down the stairs of the library and dropping a few of my books. I was tempted to just leave them where they dropped, until the librarian gave me this lecture about how old and delicate the books are. Then I felt like a jerk when one of the pages ripped out of one when I tried to pick it up. Let’s just say I’m getting my mom to return the books. As I sat there I was considering forgetting about the essay on Shakespeare my mom made me do for extra credit. It was late, I was tired, and my brain still wasn’t recovered from the night before. Plus I was running out of paper, and the last sheet I had left had orange thumbprints on the top from the cheese curls I was eating. I could just tell my mom that I fell asleep, and that I’m almost done. Then possibly I could get an extension to the due date.
I woke up not even three hours later to the sound of my mom’s cheery voice telling me she had a surprise. I thought it was going to be that my brain finally exploded and that I don’t have to write about Shakespeare or anything else again. But surprises aren’t ever good for me so when my mom told me that she found a replacement tutor I wasn’t so shocked. Nor was I shocked when she told me that the tutors name was Erin. Although, I knew it wouldn’t be snotty Erin because she promised that she wouldn’t come anywhere close to my house again. But that’s beside the point. On Tuesday night, I waited in my living room on my couch with my book bag next to me waiting for Erin to get here. She was late. Ten minutes to be exact, and I was thinking about getting out my math book for some relaxation, but soon as the thought entered my head the doorbell rang.
When I opened the door I was actually surprised to what I saw. The Erin that was at the door was nothing like I expected. In fact they weren’t even an Erin, they were an Aaron. He was tall, had dark brown hair and dimples when he smiled. I never saw this kid before, and I would’ve known if I had. It’s like if you saw Brad Pitt in your local grocery store, you would remember his charming good looks, and sparkling blue eyes…
He came over on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s just like Erin did. But surprised me by skipping the boring lectures on literature and ancient writings, which have no importance no matter what Erin said, and went right into making me write. He was deep, and it complimented his comical personality. He was interesting and kept me awake, even when we weren’t studying. I couldn’t help but sit in my room wide awake in the middle of the night thinking about the next time we would meet. He told me he liked coming over, that it was an escape from his real life. And I thought, but didn’t dare say, that being him was like a dream too, short and sweet. Being with him made me like surprises, and I hate to say it, but writing too.
I started asking if he could come over on other days of the week for help on projects, or essays, or even math, even though I didn’t need it. We’d always end up eating cheese curls and watching the Wheel of Fortune, which was his favorite show. And just when my mom would walk in, he would come up way to relate the show back to English. He made me smile, and I liked that. He also made my mom smile when she saw my report card at the end of the year. Right there, next to ENGLISH was an A, indicating that I wouldn’t be needing Aaron’s help anymore. As we both realized that I knew the smiles faded from our faces.
A few weeks later after getting my report card I sat in my room stumbling on something I was writing. My trash can was nearly filled and my hand was starting to hurt. But this was something I was determined not to give up on. As I sat there, confused as ever, I thought it was ironic, maybe even meant to be, that Aaron didn’t teach me how to write a love letter.